Page 21 of All of Us Murderers

“—and to prove to myself that Elise did not entirely own me. To resist her spell. A man cannot be subservient to his wife, slave to her whims. I ensured my needs were met, that was all, and yes, perhaps I should have put an end to the business afterwards. I grant that freely. But it did no harm, and prevented me making excessive demands on a new wife. Is that so wrong? And yet, to hear Elise tell it, I ruined her life and despoiled the marriage bed. As though she—”

“Wait, wait, wait.” Zeb had been translating that out of Brammish. “You’re saying you took a mistress before your marriage and kept her on afterwards? While bleating about how much you adored Elise? For God’s sake!”

“I have a man’s natural urges!”

“You have a man’s thick head, is what you have. She found out?”

“The wretched girl came to our house,” Bram said. “I had been married less than two months when she forced her way in and told Elise everything. And Elise has punished me for a decade. Ten years of anger and resentment over a trivial affair! They ruined my marriage between them.”

“Jesus wept, Bram. Elise was, what, nineteen, just married? And your mistress turned up at the family home?”

“The girl meant nothing! I proved it at the time, but Elise has used her as an excuse for ten years of frigidity to me and harlotry with others, in which she has spent everything I have. I cannot rid myself of her because she will recount my every misstep in court—”

“More than just the one mistress, then?”

“And now this!” Bram said, ignoring him. “It is a bitter irony. She only stayed for the money, because I was to be Wynn’s heir, and thanks to her I am to be disinherited.”

“Look on the bright side,” Zeb suggested. “If you don’t inherit, she has no reason to stay married to you, and you can divorce one another like civilized people. What a rotten mess you have made of your life.”

“That’s rich, coming from you,” Bram snarled, and the pure childishness of it landed a punch that no amount of bluster could have achieved because it sounded like the big brother Zeb had loved when he was six.

“Ah, God,” he said. “Can we not do better than this? Can we just—”

He didn’t even know what to suggest. He wanted to say I forgive you, but it wasn’t true and he didn’t know how to make it true. Maybe if Bram admitted he’d done wrong?

Pigs might fly.

“I’m sorry that what I said caused trouble for you,” he said. “It wasn’t my intent. But honestly, Bram, if you are unhappy with our estrangement or your marriage, you need to take a hard look at who is truly responsible and act accordingly.”

Bram considered him unblinkingly for a moment. “Well. Thank you, Zebedee. And…” He drew himself up. “I accept your apology.”

Zeb gave a moment’s consideration to beating his brother’s head in with a candlestick. On the whole, it didn’t seem worth the effort.

“Fine,” he said, and left.

He went back into the hall, wondering what to do now. Gideon and Jessamine had gone—

Gideon! Damn, damn, damn: he’d entirely forgotten, and he had no idea how much time had passed. He hurried to get his coat and slipped out of the house, heading for the stone circle.

Wynn’s refusal to take the motor out seemed a little more reasonable as he stepped outside.

The mist was clammy and bitterly cold. It drifted over the grounds, making them ghostly.

He didn’t feel entirely convinced it was a good idea to walk anywhere in this: the grounds were a circle two miles in diameter, which made for an area of—he attempted to remember what you did with pi—something over three square miles, probably.

You could get dangerously lost in that if you couldn’t see your way, given the cold.

And his reason for leaving the house was…

well, tenuous didn’t come close. He’d probably invented the whole thing, or was horrendously late, and would stand out here like a fool getting wet and freezing half to death. His shoes already felt damp again.

But he set off down the path all the same, through the trees.

It was hard to judge time or distance in the mist, but he trudged on, mist tickling his cheeks and drenching his shoes, and after what felt like a very long time, he saw the stone circle come looming out of the dimness in a way which would gladden the heart of any Gothic novelist.

He marched up, more relieved than he’d have cared to admit to have found it, and called, “Hello?” His voice sounded oddly flat and muffled, as though the mist cut off sound as well as sight. “You had better be here or I’m going to feel stupid.”

A shadow detached itself from one of the stones. “I am.”

Zeb felt a pulse of relief. “I did think you must mean the stone circle, but then I felt like some sort of secret agent. What the blazes are we doing out here in this stinking weather when Hawley is going to wake up at any moment?”

“Not being overheard,” Gideon said. “Did you speak to Wynn?”

“He said the mist is too thick to drive in, which I dare say, but surely we can’t all be trapped in the house. Can the chauffeur not go slowly? Or does he not have horses? I’m sure horses don’t wander off paths and fall into grimpen mires.”

“I couldn’t say, but it’s moot because Wynn’s instructed the grooms not to have the horses taken out. And I’ve been to the garage and the chauffeur isn’t budging either. Wynn has ordered that nobody goes onto the moor till the mist has lifted, and that’s all there is to it.”

Zeb stared at him. “But he can’t keep me here! Hawley will be up and about in an hour at most. Shit, shit, shit!”

Gideon’s arms closed round him. He was cold and damp, but so was Zeb, and the touch was at least an emotional comfort. He leaned in, pathetically grateful for this.

“Let’s not panic,” Gideon said into his hair. “How bad is this?”

Zeb attempted to think clearly. “Hawley will doubtless spill all the beans he can. I have no idea how Wynn will react. Bram will be awful.” He set his shoulders. “But, you know, it will only be awfulness. Unpleasant remarks and such. I suppose I can put up with that.”

Gideon’s grip tightened. “You shouldn’t have to.”

“But Hawley is a prick, so I will. The main thing is, it shouldn’t affect you. If Hawley knew you and I got sacked from Cubitt’s together, he would have mentioned it before now, so—”

“He may not know that,” Gideon said, voice hollow. “But Wynn does.”

“What? How? What?”

“It was how I got this job. He sought me out after he heard from Paul Ellison at Cubitt’s that I’d been caught up in a mess of your making.

He said, specifically, that he was not going to ask what had happened, and that Ellison believed I deserved a second chance, so he wanted to offer me a fresh start. ”

“Good Lord. Well, that was good of Ellison—a lot better than I’d have expected, actually—but why? Not why you deserve it, but why would Wynn clean up my messes?”

“I didn’t ask,” Gideon said. “I latched on to the offer with no questions and both hands. I’d been out of work for months, and with my brother-in-law—”

“Oh Lord, I didn’t ask. How is he? How are they both?”

Gideon’s sister had suffered years of poor health after giving birth to twin girls, costing a fortune in doctors, and then her husband had been seriously injured in an accident that had left him unable to work for more than a year.

It was the kind of bad luck that plunged people from comfort into poverty at frightening speed.

Gideon had been spending most of his salary on keeping the family afloat; it was one of the reasons Zeb getting them both sacked was unforgivable.

“Eleanor is very well, and James has made a full recovery.” The glow in Gideon’s voice was audible. “He’s back at work.”

“Really? Oh, thank God.”

“It’s a huge relief. But of course they have debts still, and I’d long since run through my savings and borrowed all I could, and I didn’t want to be a drain on their household when I finally had a chance at work. So I leapt at it.”

“You spent everything you had on keeping them afloat,” Zeb said indignantly. “They couldn’t help you in return?”

“They did. I lived with them for eight months, for goodness’ sake.

” Gideon spoke as if that went without saying; as if family could naturally be relied on and wouldn’t let you down.

“But they deserved their own lives back, and I didn’t want to be dependent.

I wanted a job, and when Wynn offered me this one out of the blue it felt heaven-sent.

Board, lodging, good salary. A year of this and I’ll have paid off my debts, and have a reference I can use. ”

“That is marvellous,” Zeb said, resolving to think better of Wynn. “I’m awfully pleased.”

“Well, yes. Except, I have this job because you and I got sacked from Cubitt’s together. So if Hawley spills the beans and Wynn draws the obvious conclusion—”

“Oh God. If you lose this because of me—shit, shit, shit. I’ll do anything I have to. I could try grovelling to Hawley—”

“Wouldn’t that just make him worse?”

“I’m not sure things can get worse. I cannot lose you another job.”

Gideon’s fingers bit into his arms. “If I lose this, it won’t be your fault.”

“Yes, it will. I shouldn’t have come here at all, and I should have left when you told me, and I should never have done that stupid thing at Cubitt’s, and I’m so sorry—”

Gideon jerked him closer, jammed his cold face against Zeb’s, and kissed him.

It was not an elegant kiss, with numb faces and at least one party entirely unprepared for it. It was urgent and panicky and almost angry, and Zeb grabbed on for dear life, pulling Gideon against him, fists in his coat. Kissing in the mists, reckless, damp, frantic, together.

It didn’t last nearly long enough. Gideon let him go, breathing heavily. “It is not your fault,” he said again. “It’s my fault for getting caught up in Wyckhams again, and Wynn’s for not asking obvious questions, and Hawley’s for being a prick.”

Zeb released his lapels with regret. “Certainly the last one. All right, look. If Wynn says anything, there was an unfortunate incident at Cubitt’s, but it was entirely my fault for putting you in a compromising situation against your will. You were unjustly blamed, you haven’t seen me since. Yes?”

“No,” Gideon said flatly. “That’s not fair.”

“I will not lose you another job,” Zeb said equally flatly. “I will not, and you can’t ask me to. So you are going to blame me for everything, got it? I owe you this. You don’t have to take the consequences of my actions again.”

Gideon’s lips parted. Zeb went on before he found an objection, not that there could be any. “And think about it. If we play this right, Wynn will insist I leave immediately, mist or not, and nobody in my family will ever speak to me again. I’d pay good money for that.”

“Zeb,” Gideon said again, and grabbed his hand.

Zeb squeezed it, hard. “You blame me, for everything. And that way you’ll keep your job, and it will all be fine. Come on. We should get back.”